Your Green party candidate for Breaston and for the Erewash constituency is 46 -year-old local secondary schoolteacher, Brent Poland who lives in Breaston with his wife and two young children.

Full statement

Originally from Northern Ireland, Brent made Breaston and Erewash his home 23 years ago and is passionate about maintaining and improving the area while also preserving the history and unique local culture. He says: “Erewash has been my home for two decades; I have lived here for 23 years and I’ve worked here as a teacher for 20 of those years in the same local school. Perhaps, most importantly to me, I am raising my family here: my children go to school here; we use the parks and local amenities; we experience the same issues as every other Erewash resident; and I am completely invested in the long-term future of the whole of the borough.”

I have been an active member of the Green Party since 2014 when I was made aware of local issues such as fracking and HS2. I witnessed first-hand how the current political establishment failed us. I stood as a parliamentary candidate in 2019 and doubled the Green vote. I stood as a Derbyshire County Council candidate in 2021 and beat Labour into second becoming the official opposition. Since then I have continued to work hard across the borough campaigning for residents on housing, education, transport and social justice issues.

As candidate for the Green Party, I am looking forward to holding the current government party to account and to address the opposition parties on matters which have affected our borough in recent years. I think you will agree that Erewash requires systematic change politically, economically and environmentally to improve quality of life for each, and every, Erewash resident. Our local manifesto is simple –

• To properly fund ALL local front-line services.

We will reverse the austerity of the last 14 years and not just patch up what is broken by ensuring all have access to vital social services. This includes quality social care, protection of our hospital and all of the emergency services. Services need to work together more collaboratively as they used to and more connected to the community they serve. Not only reverse cuts to Ilkeston hospital but expand the number of beds and reinstate the drop in centre. Our NHS is that, ours and must remain so, it can’t be allowed to slide further into managed decline.

• A stronger local economy, with the right job in the right place for the right person.

Regeneration of both Ilkeston and Long Eaton High streets, by working with and supporting local businesses to offer sustainable and meaningful employment with living wages and a work life balance which maximises the potential of the area and not a race to the bottom. We need “bottom up” development that helps up our community not “top down” which helps the already wealthy. We have too many suffering in our community from poverty, too many failed by false promises of “levelling up” which have not been delivered and too many who suffered not only during austerity, covid but this imposed cost of living crisis. We must prepare for the next Industrial Revolution and AI, the Erewash Green Party has been at the forefront of Green policy on AI and we need to ensure the Green Industrial Revolution starts where the 1st Industrial Revolution started.

• Improve our education system and outcomes

We need to unlock the potential of our youth and not continue the “Brain Drain” in losing our brightest and best. Therefore, we must invest in local education and in skills to help create an innovative workforce. The current underfunded of education system is going to not only hurt the nation but the social consequences are going to cost us in the long run. We need to improve the poor social mobility rates in Erewash, every child in the borough should have the same life chances, every child should start their lessons with a full stomach and be taught by a specialist teacher who can meet their needs in a safe environment.

• The right housing in the right place for the right person.

We do not need more housing on Greenbelt but more regeneration of our existing Brownfield sites. Erewash has hundreds of empty properties, retail and industrial units. These brownfield sites are more appropriate for redevelopment before using the Greenbelt. We need more social housing, affordable housing and homes for an older population which the current census data shows. Too often the developer is king and gets to choose where the housing goes, this is regardless of service access of impact on the existing community, we would end this. Also, when houses are built they must be built to a high standard and not on floodplains.

• Future proof Erewash for the climate change crisis

The clock is ticking on environmental policy reform; we will make sure that residents of Erewash have a voice in protecting our community, our local environment and way of life. We need rewilding, meadow seeding and reforestation not only to improve our environment but to protect us from climate change. We will take radical steps to help prevent and protect our residents against flooding, hydraulic fracking, large scale building projects from the inland Freeport and any HS2 developments while conserving and regenerating our precious and beautiful greenbelt.

• Clean up and enhance our local environment

We have the 5th worst sewage polluted river in the country in the River Derwent and 11th in the River Erewash. In the event of flooding, we will be having this effluence not only in the likes of West Park but also potentially in homes. We need to clean up our local waterways. We have air quality issues with our proximity to the M1, we need a green lung along this corridor and ensure we encourage a decarbonisation of transport and encourage great use of bus transport to reduce emissions. We need more Green appropriate infrastructure in both local energy generation. We will fight the scourge of fly tipping and reform waste services to ensure greater reduce, re-use and recycling.

• More community involvement in safer communities

There is a disconnect between the political establishment and the community, voting rates in local elections reflect this. The lack of engagement by our MP is a low. We would therefore look to involve more advocates in our management of our community. Together we can solve community problems of anti-social behaviour, crime, litter, fouling and empower more to invest civically in their communities.

The binary politics of Conservatives and Labour has failed Erewash and failed the country. They are too much party first and people second. I believe in a different mantra of “service above self”. It would be a privilege to represent all the people of my ward and my constituency, a privilege I would not take advantage of for my own gain. We are not all the same in politics, vote Green and vote Brent.

Thank you, Brent and the Erewash Green Party